Big and Little Facts About Your Height

In another blow to petite people, science shows that taller folks are also perceived as being more attractive.

In addition to factors such as power and self esteem, leg length may be a surprising influence. People with shorter-than-average legs were viewed as being less attractive than people with slightly longer gams, a study in Evolution and Human Behavior found. Sorry, supermodels: The study also found that having excessively long legs decreased attractiveness.

There may be an evolutionary explanation for the effect, note the researchers. Very short or long legs could indicate “genetic diseases, health problems, or weak immune responses to adverse environment factors acting during childhood and adolescence.”

Very short or tall people may have conditions called dwarfism or gigantism, respectively. About one in 15,000 people have dwarfism, defined as an adult height of 4 feet 10 inches or less. Genetic mutations that cause bones to grow short are the main causes, according to Michael J. Goldberg, MD, chief of the Skeletal Dysplasia Clinic at Seattle Children’s Hospital.

At the other end of the spectrum is a more rare condition called gigantism, in which people grow very tall, usually due to an excess of growth hormones during childhood often caused by a benign tumor on the pituitary gland.